W HERE IN THE WORLD?
Instant City For eight days a year Black Rock City becomes
one of Nevada's biggest towns, with a population rivaling that of the
capital, Carson City. It even has an airport and department of motor
vehicles. The ad hoc municipality arises in the Black Rock Desert
to host 50,000 campers who attend the Burning Man counterculture
festival the week before Labor Day. The event began in 1986 as
a San Francisco art experiment cum beach party and moved to
the desert in 1991 as crowds grew. Despite Burning Man's tradition
of nudity and drugs, police make few arrests. At the center of the
five-square-mile city is a 70-foot-tall wooden effigy, set ablaze at
week's end. The town vanishes too, says founder Larry Harvey: "No
roads, no buildings, no trash---as if we were never there." ---Peter Gwin
Nevada's Black Rock City
shapes up as a semi-
circle (for better desert
views) with a five-sided
security fence.
IKONOS SATELLITE IMAGE COURTESY GEOEYE